All Articles Tagged As: pulsars

Measuring a pulsar's smoothness (6/5/2008)

In one of the first significant scientific findings from a huge collaborative effort to detect gravitational waves, the team operating the Laser Interferometer Gravity-wave Observatory (LIGO) is reporting this week that the pulsar at the center of the Crab Nebula must have an extremely smooth surface. ...> Full Article

Scientists edge closer to unlocking secrets of mysterious Crab Pulsar (6/3/2008)

Like a celestial top, the spinning neutron star known as the Crab Pulsar is slowing, a phenomenon that astronomers have yet to fully understand. ...> Full Article

Quirky binary pulsar challenges theories (5/19/2008)

An ongoing sky survey using the Cornell-managed Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico has turned up a massive, fast-spinning binary pulsar with a mysterious elongated orbit ...> Full Article

Searching the heavens (5/6/2008)

A new space mission, due to launch this month, is going to shed light on some of the most extreme astrophysical processes in nature - including pulsars, remnants of supernovae, and supermassive black holes. It could even help us comprehend the origin and distribution of dark matter ...> Full Article

White Dwarf Pulses Like A Pulsar (1/3/2008)

New observations from Suzaku, a joint Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and NASA X-ray observatory, have challenged scientists' conventional understanding of white dwarfs. Observers had believed white dwarfs were inert stellar corpses that slowly cool and fade away, but the new data tell a completely different story. ...> Full Article

Stars caught in bizarre death-dance (9/15/2007)

Astronomers played a key role in discovering one of the most bizarre objects in space: a star "skeleton" of very low mass that is orbiting and being slowly consumed by a pulsar, or remains of a second massive star, that is itself spinning faster than a kitchen blender. ...> Full Article